Coiler’s Culmination Calculator

As a fun side project, I made my first (intentionally abstracted) wargaming tool. The goal is to see the culmination point of an offensive.

Assumptions: The attacker is consistently advancing, however, the defender is fighting back hard throughout. The units of the attacker participating in the campaign are not going to be rotated out, hence they will only receive small and piecemeal reinforcements/replacements throughout.

This simple tool works as follows:

  • The attacker starts with a point total of 100.
  • For each objective, roll 1d10. 1 means the objective is taken unopposed and the force suffers no meaningful losses. 2-6 is a minor engagement where the unit suffers a point loss equal to 1d6 points. 7-10 is a major engagement where the unit suffers a point loss equal to 1d6+10.
  • After every turn, the faction regains 3 points.
  • The offensive will have culminated when the point total reaches zero or less.

Example:

  • Objective 1: 9: 16 points lost. 3 regenerated. 87 points.
  • Objective 2: 8: 12 points lost, 3 regenerated. 78 points.
  • Objective 3: 6: 1 point lost, 3 regenerated. 79 points
  • Objective 4: 6: 6 points lost, 3 regenerated. 76 points.
  • Objective 5: 1: No losses, 3 points regenerated. 79 points.
  • Objective 6: 3: 5 losses, 3 regenerated. 77 points
  • Objective 7: 10: 11 losses, 3 regenerated. 69 points

Etc….

Figures of course can be changed depending on context.

One thought on “Coiler’s Culmination Calculator

  1. Interesting. Of course, if you change the probabilities and losses and reinforcements the answer will change but with the one you have set up here, the expected culmination point will be 27 or 28 objectives.
    10% of the time you will have an expected gain of 3 (0 losses + 3 reinforcements), so expected value is +0.3
    50% of the time you will have an expected gain of +0.5 (expected loss of 3.5 ((1+2+3+4+5+6) divided by 6) + 3 reinforcements) so expected value is +0.25
    40% of the time you will have an expected loss of -10.5 (expected loss of 13.5 + 3 reinforcements) so expected value is -4.2

    Summing the expected values gives an expected loss of -3.65 each turn, divided into initial value of 100 means you will be expected to hit zero between the 27th and 28th objective.

    If you got no reinforcements at all your offensive would be expected to culminate after the 14th objective.

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